Telltale’s Guardians of the Galaxy is definitely an interesting one. Telltale have encountered my interest once more. I ended up buying the season pass for Guardians of the Galaxy right away, before I had even played or looked at any of it. I never normally go into a game as blind as that, but I had some spare income lying around and thought I may as well. This is sort of like an expedition into the unknown, and we’ll be reviewing all five episodes as they come out.

If you’re reading this on the 7th of June then that means the review of the second episode will also be out as well. The thing about buying a game brand new from the store is that I’m in the loop on things for once. Never before have I reviewed a brand new game. But before we get to that, lets get the first episode reviewed.

You’ll be disappointed to learn that the original cast of the movies didn’t come back for this game. You won’t be listening to Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista or Vin Diesel in this game. As far as I’m aware none of the minor characters or supporting cast seen in the film have been brought back either. Both as a character in general or in relation to voice acting. That’s not too big a deal at least and it’s not too much of a problem.

Graphically, the game looks very different to its movie counterparts. The most obvious change is in the form of the appearance. Some characters have changed slightly such as Rocket and Groot, but others look nothing like their film counterpart. Drax for a start is a completely different colour entirely, but his characteristics are more or less intact. Gamora as well has decided to change colour entirely, the sole reason being why not I suppose. Starlord himself is sort of similar to that of his movie counterpart. To be fair I’m adamantly sure that the makes of the game have based the characters off of the animated series.

See what I mean about Gamora? Completely different to the film series.

I can’t really speak about the game without spoiling it. At this point if you don’t want spoilers I’d skip a bit out. The whole preface for this game is that Peter Quill has killed Thanos. At first I thought this was a great and unique idea for a plot. However, you then realise the game isn’t canon because of this. Either that or Thanos will somehow come back to life by the end of this game. That’s certainly my guess as to what will happen considering his death was briefly mentioned within this game.

All of these plot points are basically resolved now. Looking back on this episode after playing the second, it’s more of a time waste really. It doesn’t establish the characters because it’s arrogant enough to presume you have knowledge on the Marvel universe. I had no clue who The Kree were before playing this, but to be fair I haven’t seen everything relating to Marvel.

Of course, achievements are very easy in this game, it’s a Telltale game. What were you honestly expecting at this point? A lovely and straightforward 200G to kick us off into this game. But that’s basically every Telltale game, I’d be very surprised if they released a game with difficult achievements.

Music has always been a big function of anything relating to Guardians of the Galaxy. It should come as no surprise that there are some definite classics within this game. I’m not the biggest fan of the menu music but that’s probably because I’ve heard it so frequently. Some sound effects did sound very similar to the Back to the Future Telltale series. Mainly when starting up the game. I know they’re both sci-fi but come on I’m sure you can get some new sound effects in. The main menu music does honestly sound a bit like music you’d find in The Sims. A bit of an odd comment, but you’ll see what I mean when you load up the game.

Puzzles are definitely becoming less frequent in Telltale games. The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us definitely had some interactivity to them. At this point Telltale games are just movies that require some button pressing. Surprisingly, there are sections of this game that do require genuine thinking to solve. Well, by Telltale standards anyway. You fly up and down in a certain section and scan the area. It’s the same old formula

But what isn’t the same old formula is the quick time events. Yes, they’re still in the game. But they aren’t your simplistic The Walking Dead prompts that we had before, God no, long gone are those days. Instead you have to push a direction on the analogue stick and then follow it up with a few different button presses.

Verdict

Presumably from that comment you can guarantee a recommendation from me, right? Well, not entirely. While the first episode isn’t terrible, it most certainly isn’t Telltale’s finest work. I’m a huge fan of the Guardians of the Galaxy series as a whole, but for this it just didn’t work that well. From mediocre music to just an overall assumption of knowledge, the first episode didn’t impress me. That is a shame, it most certainly is. But there are some positives to be found also. While I’m not a fan of the character design, there’s still a certain charm to them and that is undeniable. On top of that, the plot begins to pick up in later episodes, but more on that later.

There is a bonus for those of you who stream in the form of Crowd Play. You can choose whether or not the crowd chooses each decision to be made or if they can vote for the most popular. It’s a neat system if I’m honest and I’m sure someone could play around with this to the point where it becomes more than a novelty. Only time (and the remaining four episodes) will tell.

REVIEW OVERVIEW

Guardians of the Galaxy: Tangled Up in the Blue

6

SUMMARY

Unfortunately Telltale haven't given a promising start to a series of games I was looking forward to. The writing and graphics of course were superb, but the characters themselves are odd looking and the musical score is sub par at best.